(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a reconfigurable telecommunication unit.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Due to technological and cost constraints, current wireless telecommunication systems are dedicated to one communication standard or way of communicating. That is why the major part of the current systems physical layer processing remains still made of dedicated pre-cabled functions (ASIC). Some programmable functions sometimes may be introduced for design convenience in order to keep a certain flexibility (often to compensate ASIC imperfections).
This implies a certain rigidity in the design and the use of the system.
A new approach is emerging: Software Radio. First reasons are design cost and time-to-market. This can be considered as a normal evolution of the current trend in the design of telecommunication systems. Higher layers than physical layer have been more and more implemented in digital and in software in the past few years. Software Radio intends at generalizing this trend to the physical layer. But because of the strong real-time embedded constraints for the physical layer, this necessitates new paradigm and methods. They are principally based on the use (as much as possible) of digital techniques since digital also means easily changeable.